The Mephisto Covenant by Trinity Faegen is the first book of a new paranormal series about a group of sons of Hell and their hope for redemption through the Anabo (daughters of Eve). More specifically, the brother named Jax meets Sasha, who turns out to be his Anabo. Attraction and complications ensue, and the even-more-evil-than-the-sons-of-Hell-bad-guys come out to play.

Even though I'm sure I'll go on for longer than this, my review can basically be summed up into one sentence. My belief is that if Stephenie Meyer was a porn star instead of a Mormon, this is the book she would have written. (Of course, she also would have had to have had her Eureka! dream about Hell boys frolicking through a meadow instead of sparkly vampires, but I digress.)

Sasha meets Jax and learns the truth about herself very early on, and even though she is supposedly "terrified" and "repulsed" by him, she still manages to almost immediately engage in a make-out session. Throughout the book, she continues to "not want to be near him" and "just wants to be normal," but still manages to pounce on him on numerous occasions and even goes so far as to ditch the bra fairly early on (before the big sexy scene at the end which I'll get to in a minute). Jax looks at her and admires her strength of character and considers her tough even as a boy basically tries to molest her in the cafeteria while she sits there and cries about it instead of slapping the crap out of him. Oh - but don't worry. Those are tears of anger. Whew. And here I had been thinking it was just because she was a wuss.

Seriously. The characterization in this novel is little more than a joke. Not one character goes beyond being two-dimensional. Sasha's character makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - we are told she is tough and kick ass, yet she cries all the freakin time. We are told she is very hesitant and unwilling to take on her Anabo destiny, but even when she knows that kissing Jax constantly brings her closer to the edge (his spit, you know), she still jumps him like a prime cut of steak. WTF? Also, Jax is supposedly a son of Hell, and we are told that he engages in a varied array of horrible behavior, yet he spends the majority of the novel either mooning over Sasha like a moron in jr. high or being a complete overbearing jerk (see? Twilight!). So, hopefully you see the trend I'm going for her - we are told many things in the story, but never actually shown them. Same goes for the chemistry between the characters, they are supposedly struck mad by the love bug, are constantly all over each other - but I never felt even the smallest flicker of anything. Not good writing my friends, not good at all.

So yeah, this is very much a plot-driven novel. However, the book is pretty long and there are quite a few slow parts that dragged on a little too much. Probably because there were quite a few Sasha/Jax bonding scenes. Since I didn't feel like their relationship made a lick of sense, I was annoyed. But, I did manage to read the entire book, which does say something. If it had really been 100% horrible, no way could I have read the whole thing without throwing it across the room (theoretically since I read it on my Kindle). But then again, I had to put it down several times and never looked forward to picking it back up - it was more determination to see it through. Plus I wanted to get to the promised sexytimes (which yes, was pretty graphic for YA but also very short - I guess even immortal Hell boy teenagers don't have a lot of staying power).

To top things off, the ending of the book was a complete loss. Totally cuts off to rope you into wanting to read the sequel (which I think I'll be managing to resist thank you very much). Not really any resolution.

Anyway, this was obviously not the book for me. I have already seen some positive reviews out there however, so not everyone will agree with me! If you are a huge forbidden love fangirl and/or love Twilight-like relationships don't let me put you off reading the book - you'll undoubtedly enjoy it a lot more than I did. (If you aren't a fan of either of those things, run like the wind...the YA sexytimes aren't worth it.)

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